Paris Part 3: When do we eat?

The final chapter of our Parisian fairytale encompasses our visits to two iconic monuments to history and a failure to find macarons or, for that matter, any open bakeries. Don't try to go to a French bakery on a Sunday. You will find yourself like a bird at a sliding glass door, hitting the wall over and over as an example to which others can point out as a definition of insanity.

Our journey into the heart of Paris began, as most journeys do for those without a car, in the train station, where they must have been expecting us.

They must have been expecting us...

Train station artwork

It was still fairly early in the morning when we had arrived, and we had not yet gotten breakfast. Theoretically, our mission was to first find some sort of sidewalk cafe at which to actually have breakfast, and then to go on to the sites we most wanted to see. We decided to look for something near Notre Dame to make such a transition of activities easier. This did not, in fact, help our transition at all. We got distracted and went to see Notre Dame first. 

Charlotte staring dramatically over the river

Parisian streets along the river

Notre Dame

Interestingly, Notre Dame doesn't appear that big from the front. Yes, the architecture of the front is tall, but the roof behind those towers seems low, and the width of the building seems rather reasonable. However, you really have to take half an hour or so to really absorb the level of detail carved into the walls and above the doors.

There is a large, clear courtyard in front of the cathedral, allowing plenty of room for masses of people, and clearing the view as you approach. 

The closer you get to the building, the more complex the front appears. You start to notice masses and masses of people and angels and devils carved into the stone. Its as if the artists were trying to fit the whole mass of humanity and humanity's perception of itself onto the front of the cathedral, now neatly organized into hierarchies of religious significance. 

The center doors. Those are actually rows of angels above the doors,
and some sort of saints standing below, at head level. 

Above the center doors: more saints. 

Close up of the window above the center doors. 

As we were carrying everything we had with us, the "no luggage allowed in the cathedral" sign put us in a bit of a quandary. Our solution was to leave one person outside with the luggage to take in the front of the cathedral while the other darted in for a look-see, and then to swap. I really don't think I would have noticed as much detail if I had been able to rush right into the cathedral. I'm really glad I had a moment to sit and examine. Or stand and examine. While looking ferocious while guarding our stuff.

This is what it looks like when you're standing at the bottom,
waiting for your friend to come out while you stand with the luggage you're not allowed to take inside.

I wonder what these holes up the side of the building are...
they're quite shallow, which makes me thing they are not, perhaps, for construction supports?

More close ups of the saints at head level near the doors. 

Notice what the saints are standing on? I think they're demons or some such soapbox material. 

A close up of the people, demons and cities the saints are standing on.

Even the doors are incredibly ornamented. 

When Charlotte came back out, I tarted in as they were beginning some sort of service. The woman's singing, the darkness of the cathedral edges along which I stepped, the soaring gothic architecture, the candles, and the hushed tones made me feel as though I had suddenly stepped through a portal to the 14th century. It was an intense feeling of chrono-displacement. 

The corridors skirting the central seating area. 

One of a pair of enormous stained class windows.
Do you see the people in white and purple in the lower right hand corner?

Everything was arched.

candles were placed all over these things. 

Further on, past the main stage, there was a smaller central alcove enclosed by dark wood and intricately detailed gates. The walk way followed a deep U formation around this central area, and the outer wall was divided into smaller, more private spaces and areas for the display of significant statues and artwork. In one of these alcoves, just after rounding the bend, I found a display on the construction of the cathedral itself, which took centuries (1163 to 1345), not to mention the modifications and repairs conducted after WWI and WWII.

The central alcove at the back of the cathedral.

A small model of the cathedral. This actually gave me a better sense of
scale than standing in front of the cathedral itself. The front of the cathedral blocks you from seeing the rest. 

Statues I will probably not be able to see because of the
massive front of the cathedral which blocks them

This is what the back end of the cathedral looks like. 

Ok: I found this statue really funny. There's Dude #1 in the center, right? He's handing some sort of food or item of significance to the woman on the left. He's sitting up all high and mighty on his chair. Dude #2 on the right is like "Check out my homie here! He's so magnanimous and charitable. Do you see him helping out the little people?"

As we left the cathedral, still not having had breakfast, we got a glimpse of the side of the building. See all the long rain gutters hanging off the side? They're carved in the shape of gargoyles.

Oh look! You can sort of see the green statues they made such a point of putting on the wooden model. 

Crossing the river right next to the cathedral. 

We had good intentions, coming out of Notre Dame. We were really trying to find breakfast. It's just we're easily distracted and hard to satisfy when it comes to meal selections sometimes (especially when we're hungry). It didn't help that there were distractions along the way:

I was trying to take a picture of the garden
and ended up with a beauty shot of this guy.

Charlotte had to drag me away. Hunger helped,
but it was tough to leave. 

 After striking out around Notre Dame, we thought we'd try to find a nice little place for some breakfast around the Eiffel Tower. Because that makes sense right? Big tourist draw, there has to be some sort of food around. Maybe a bakery where we can also find macarons? Sigh...

Our first look at the Eiffel Tower.

It's getting closer!

Why are you taking a picture of me again?

It is really really big. Like giant.

Looking up its skirt.

This thing is massive. We're standing under it. 

Of course, this plan meant the Eiffel tower was in the way, so we had to stop and gawk at it for a bit, though hunger drove us onward.

There's a really great park right behind the tower (or right in front, depending on your perspective).

Bye! I swear, we'll come back!

The crossroads where we had breakfast (finally).

By this point, we were too hungry to be picky, and we jumped on the first cafe we saw, which, helpfully, had crepes.

            

My breakfast was literally crepes and nutella. 

Hot chocolate and tea were definitely necessary.

When we were ready (and tired of sitting near smokers), we trekked back to the tower to climb to the observation deck. Because we are slightly masochistic, we hauled our giant bags up all 328 steps to the observation deck, which isn't even the highest one can go on the tower; just the highest one can climb. 

At various points on the staircase, they have excuses to stop and catch your breath. 

Also they like caricatures of people, including the man who designed the tower. 

THAT MANY STEPS.

I guess they felt there weren't enough steps, so they added some more?

The view of the park in front of/behind the tower.

Panoramas turn out weird. 

ALL THE STEEL. 

There were plenty of spacious cityscape views from the observation deck. 

The liked to put street names in gold letters along the walkways around the tower. 

There was also a display of many different images of the tower, both real and manipulated.

When you have an iconic landmark in your city, you take advantage of it
for celebrations.

We also got to look down at the people below through glass in the floor and the giant hole in the center of the tower. 

We saw a placard commemorating that tightrope walking guy...

And then it was time to head back to London. On the way to the train station, we had hoped to see more Parisian scenery and life, but somehow got stuck wandering through a very Middle Eastern oriented food quarter, which would have been nice if we were looking for a falafel, but not so great as we were still looking for a bakery that would give us true Parisian macarons. 

At the train station, we were yet again foiled in our attempt to find any open Parisian bakery or bakery-approximating shop, and were forced to try to get through the border and onto the train, where there were no more possible last minute macaron selling shops.

This guy was selling corn on the cob on a stick, BBQ'd over a metal can with hot charcoal in a shopping cart.
I saw a couple of them.  

Interesting mural. 

Our train station.

The bakery-less train station.

We did however, get to engage in some lovely argument with the British border control as apparently the stamp on Charlotte's passport saying she was a student staying from date X until date Z didn't fully convince them that she was a student... They were upset with her for not having brought her ID. I think they wanted some sort of other date confirming when she entered the country, which was kind of ridiculous because isn't that the point OF THE PASSPORT NOTE? jeeeze

When we got back to London, we finished our trip off with dinner at a really nice place that served the sexiest hot chocolate thing I have ever had: The Florentine. 

Charlotte's Italian hot chocolate. 

I could stand my spoon up in it. It was AMAZING.

Overall, Charlotte and I agreed that Paris was fun and definitely pretty, but it was kind of a relief to come back to the UK. There's still so many places we didn't get to see though, and so many macarons we didn't get to eat, that I'm going to need to go back... at some point.